Why Compliance is Critical to Corporate Success?

Why Compliance?

Compliance with government and business regulation has always been important, but the pressure to prove that compliance has never been higher. The business risk of noncompliance is such that the reputational damage alone can lead to significant loss of earnings or even closure. 

The introduction of new major laws such as GDPR (which gives greater control to users of services in the EU over their personal data) are often stacked on top of existing regulations such as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), adding an additional burden on compliance management, including the provision of staff training. 

Organizations
0 %

say they are thoroughly prepared for a compliance audit.

 

A spate of large-scale compliance violations (such as fraud and corruption in the finance sector and patient confidentiality violations in healthcare organizations) have left businesses more anxious than ever before about the potential repercussions of non-compliance. With fines, removal of licenses, imprisonment and the entire future of the organization being plunged into jeopardy, it is crucial that everyone knows the rules they must abide by, and that the organization can prove that the relevant training has taken place and has been successfully understood and then acted upon.

The Current State of Compliance

In regular organizations, 38% of organizations spend up to $500 per employee each year on compliance training, with 13% spending more than $5,000. In highly regulated sectors, 23% of organizations spend over $5,000 on compliance training per employee per year. In 50% of organizations, employees spend 10 hours or less on compliance training activities a year, so it’s important that when they do take this training, it is highly effective.

Compliance Training Platforms

In terms of where learners go to find their compliance training, 62% of compliance training takes place on a learning management system, with just 14% opting for a specialist compliance management system. This makes sense – if it’s possible to use a single platform to support all learning initiatives, it is generally the most cost-effective option to do so. Separating compliance training onto its own platform could mean setting up a complex system of integrations to ensure that data is transferred seamlessly between platforms for accurate, up-to-date evidence of compliance.

How to Manage Compliance

Delivering compliance training is only half the battle. Equally as important is the need to track completion of compliance modules to provide evidence to regulatory boards as part of an audit or in the event that something goes wrong. Without this evidence, auditors cannot be sure that the right people have completed the appropriate training, which can make assessing compliance almost impossible.
 
Some organizations keep manual records of compliance training, whether this is in spreadsheets or on paper. However, these are difficult to maintain and keep up to date, especially when there are hundreds, thousands or even millions of learners to track. Instead, a more practical
and efficient method is to use a system that automatically delivers and tracks compliance training, sending reminders and prompts to learners when necessary to ensure that everyone completes the correct training within the specified time frame. In case of a compliance audit, the organizations are only given a short time to pull out compliance training records. If an organization has hundreds of thousands of employees and the training records are being managed using spreadsheets or, even worse, on paper, this can be a hugely manual task with great potential for inaccuracy.
 
For organizations relying on their learning management system (LMS) to deliver and record compliance, there are several important features to look out for. All of these features are available in Totara Learn, and are used by organizations worldwide to manage compliance.
 
Digital certifications are particularly useful for organisations who need to prove compliance – especially large companies for whom tracking compliance training manually would be a time-consuming, confusing process. The certifications functionality within Totara Learn supports the creation of custom learning pathways for compliance or mandatory training. A range of personalised, customisable notifications can be set to automatically notify learners, and optionally their managers, of any upcoming recertification requirements.
Setting up mandatory programs within an LMS means that learners must take these courses. Some programs may be optional (such as those designed to help with personal development) while others can be mandatory to ensure their completion by a certain date. For instance, many organisations released mandatory programs to ensure compliance with GDPR (the personal data protection laws applicable in the EU) before the deadline. Learners who had not yet completed the training could be sent reminder emails from the system to ensure they completed the program in time.
Audiences allow an LMS administrator to deliver different courses to different groups of learners. Audiences may remain static (such as where the same learners need to take the same learning each year – such as health and safety training) or may be dynamic (where the need to take certain compliance training changes over time). Different learning paths can be assigned for certification and recertification and assigned to specific positions, organisations and audiences, or to nominated individuals to help automate the management of compliance training.
Custom certification reporting can be created and scheduled to run and emailed to managers and learning administrators to proactively track and manage compliance and other mandatory training. This can automatically generate evidence of compliance for an individual or across an entire team, department or organisation, making it easier to be proactive about providing auditors with proof of compliance training.

How are organizations handling compliance today?

Compliance Case Studies on Worldwide Organizations across Sectors.

Dive deep into our complete article.

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